


Housekeeping

by iluvaqt



Series: His Best Girl [7]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Mjolnir - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-10
Updated: 2015-06-10
Packaged: 2018-04-03 17:47:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4109611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iluvaqt/pseuds/iluvaqt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Felicity understands why Natasha gets exasperated with the boys' habits.</p><p>An incident which involves a near miss with a coffee table brings about interesting developments.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Housekeeping

[ ](http://s13.photobucket.com/user/micki34/media/Banners/IMG_74421.jpg.html)

::: ::: :::

Natasha joked about having to pick up after the boys all the time. Felicity could understand it from Tony. The man was like watching a hurricane in a jar, it was chaos everywhere but somehow, his mind understood that chaos perfectly. It made sense to no one but him. 

Bruce wasn’t much better maybe it was a mad genius thing. 

But Steve was a minimalist with habits bordering on OCD. He folded his underwear and ironed his socks. Felicity didn’t even know where to put the water in the thing. She didn't know when he'd learned how to operate a modern one since she was fairly certain in his day they were still made of iron and heated on the stovetop. If she had to get out wrinkles, she spritzed her shirt with lavender infused water and threw the offending garment in the dryer for fifteen minutes. She wasn’t going to be joining the green movement any day soon but she also didn’t see standing over an ironing board in her future. 

Her charming boyfriend was completely domesticated. He said his skills came about from growing up mostly with a hardworking single parent, but also in the era of practical education. The teaching bodies realized that parents weren’t going to bother sending their kids to school with war looming around the corner. So they adopted a more attractive, practical curriculum. Boys spent a lot more time in the gym and in track and field. While girls learned sewing, cooking and both genders only learning basic maths and comprehension. Because of his ailments and physical weaknesses, the gym teacher eventually reassigned him to the girl’s program. They’d concluded that there was no chance of him ever getting past the medical exam, so it was better to give him life skills he could use. 

There had been no such thing as excursions to Liberty Island, seeing a ballgame or going to the zoo. Something Felicity had rectified in swift order. They had spent the day before his birthday, incognito at the Bronx Zoo. There was no hope of going anywhere on his birthday. Not only was it Independance Day where everyone and his dog was out en masse, but it was widely known that it was Captain America’s birthday and the fans, while respectful and nice for the most part, were exhausting. He’d loved every second of his pre-birthday outing, moving from exhibit to exhibit with all the contagious enthusiasm and wide-eyed interest of a big kid. He said it was his best birthday ever. 

Steve was neat and orderly. Until you put him in the bathroom or the kitchen. Then you realized that he'd spent too long living out of a tent or in barracks in a cloud of testosterone and too much bleach. If you were next to use the bathroom after Steve, you could almost guarantee he forgot the exhaust fan and you'd find puddles of water everywhere. It was better to wait ten minutes for the steam to clear, or you'd find yourself trying to navigate a death trap. They learned that lesson from Thor. He had left a man sized impression in the limestone tiles when he'd lost his footing on a wet patch of flooring.

As for Steve in the kitchen, well they found a method of operation that didn't give Pepper a facial tick. Steve was a natural chef, his sense of smell and taste were so precise that he created gastronomic delights that every team member looked forward to. Tony wouldn’t hear of anyone paying rent, but Steve being the man he was, refused to mooch. So instead, he contributed by cooking one night a week, usually a Saturday when everyone stayed in, to feed them all. Considering the guest list included a demi-god, a man with a Hulk-sized metabolism, four grown men and four women (and extra three mouths if Jane and Darcy came to visit, and if Rhodey dropped in), the food bill was easily a low rent apartment in Brooklyn. They installed a commercial washer and a deep sink, Felicity did the counter clearing and the pot washing and everyone helped with the dishes clean up and Pepper didn’t have a reason to break out her stern face. 

Clint was like a shadow. He wasn't around enough to leave a mess. You would think you saw him but you'd turn around and there was no one there. He didn't say much either. He was like the silent observer and team protector. Their Hawkeye in the sky. He often had an outside perspective that none of them had considered yet and Felicity appreciated how seriously he took his job in keeping his teammates safe. The more she noticed, the more she realized that her prejudice was underserved and extremely unjust. She bought him a peace offering in the form of two new trick arrows and a special gift only a man in his line of work would truly appreciate. A laser cut manufactured diamond tipped arrow, a heat seeking, targeting arrow and a new generation 3D metal printer. Natasha said she actually saw Clint tear up. No more recycling arrow shafts, hours of regrinding arrowheads or getting on the phone at midnight to berate suppliers after they botched the metal composite again. 

The messiest without a doubt would have to be Thor. He was probably used to being waited on hand and foot as a Prince of Asgard, which would explain why she was currently sprawled on the floor, pizza boxes scattered from landing to the dining table. She was lucky she caught herself at the last second or she would have face planted into the lead-crystal coffee table and that would have made a real mess, not to mention hurt like a bitch.

She pushed up from the tabletop and tried to stand, promptly falling on her ass, while catching a hammer to the chest. The pizza box in her face had her failing to see that she’d snagged her wrist on Thor’s hammer.. Mojoner... Mjolnir whatever he called it. She wondered if it was the Hammer that created the lightening and enabled him fly or if it was all Thor and the hammer was really just a oddly shaped sledge-hammer. It certainly felt like a plain old sledge-hammer to her. Untangling Thor’s cape from around her ankles, she balled it up and threw it on the couch. See how he worked out those wrinkles. Then she put the hammer back on the table and went about the odious task of salvaging the pizzas that hadn’t decorated the floor. 

Her Captain America t-shirt was covered in red sauce and grease. She sighed and huffed at the injustice of her predicament. She now understood Natasha’s frustration clearly. The men could do with a few lessons in simple housekeeping. Felicity was suddenly intensely grateful that she hadn’t worn her new silk dress. It would have been ruined. Forget trying to wow, Steve. It would have been a total loss. Well not completely. Being head of your own department meant you had to dress the part and she could claim part of her wardrobe as a tax right off.

Heading to Steve’s room where she kept a spare change of clothes, she figured she’d use his shower too and clean up before everyone started wondering in for dinner. They were all in the simulator - obviously sans Thor if he was about to leave his hammer around - doing a training exercise.

Felicity felt the bellow rather than heard it. She thought there might have been an earthquake. She braced herself in the shower but when nothing followed, she figured it must have been just a one off. It didn’t even occur to her, growing up a western seaboard girl that they didn’t often have quakes in New York. At least not naturally occurring ones. Although Kay said that giant alien earth worms that lived in decommissioned subway routes sometimes caused mini-quakes moving around.

Steve came bursting through the doorway, a little breathless and eyes-wide. Felicity didn’t know how to react. It would have to be the first time his eyes didn’t stray from her face, straight to her breasts. Steve Rogers was most definitely a breasts man. Discomforted at his lack of lust over her nakedness, Felicity shut off the water and pulled on her bathrobe. “Where’s the fire?.”

“Stark… JARVIS… Thor...come with me.”

He was acting wildly out of character and he’d hardly checked to see if she’d managed to belt herself properly before he was tugging her out of his room toward the main living area. 

“Do it again!” Tony exclaimed loudly, his juvenile words at odds with the stoic seriousness on his face.

Bruce looked twitchy, like she was a puzzle he couldn’t figure out, and Natasha was quiet and frowning. Not unusual but unsettling when the subject of the spy’s focus was her. Clint wasn’t around but Thor - the demi-god was pacing, and looked well, thunderous.

“I’m not a performing monkey, Tony. At the expense of sounding, pardon the pun, blonde, what’s going on?”

“You are worthy, daughter of Midgard. The power of Mjolnir, deems you worthy,” Thor said solemnly. The slump of his shoulders and the tightness of his jaw spoke volumes about how impressed he was to be uttering those words.

Felicity frowned, then squinted. Weird. She didn’t need her glasses at all to read the expectant looks on everyone’s faces. “I almost break a crystal coffee table with my face and everyone’s hung up on the fact that I snagged my arm on Thor’s hammer?” She wasn’t successful in curbing her inappropriate burst of humor at the situation and it exited her mouth in a very unladylike snort. They all looked so serious and awestruck, she couldn’t help it.

She turned to Thor still snickering. “Before I forget, Jane said to pick up a box of Hershey Kisses before you fly in tomorrow. You can get them in bulk at Costco. Tony can give you the address of the nearest one.” She patted him on the chest armor and left the room, still trying to stifle her the urge to laugh and fighting hard to keep her wide grin under control.

Not halfway to her destination, strong arms swept her off her feet and she was deposited on Steve’s bed in short order. He peppered kisses along her neck to the top of her chest exposed by her robe, before she had a chance to even hug him back. 

“You’re amazing, you know that.”

Felicity held his face and beamed at him. “No more amazing than you, soldier boy.”

Steve blew out a breath. “No really. Thor was ranting and bellowing that Odin had found someone more worthy and demanded to know who lifted the hammer. Stark reviewed the video and well, I had to come find you. You brushed it off like it was nothing, and reassured Thor all in one breath.”

Felicity ran her hand from his cheek to his chest, stopping over his heart. “Maybe you have to want it or believe in it’s power for it to be anything special. I didn’t feel anything, and I wouldn’t want to. That’s one heck of a burden and responsibility to have.”

“Plenty of men have tried and failed. Many still desire it.” He frowned. Perhaps he should tell Tony to delete the footage and not to mention it outside the team. It wouldn’t bode well for anyone to learn that Felicity, however unintentionally, had moved the Hammer.

“They can try. It belongs to Thor and he wields it with the respect it deserves.”

“You’re one of a kind, Felicity Smoak,” he said with tenderness.

“So are you, Mr. Rogers. Now I’d like a rock your world rogering, if you please.”

Steve ducked his face and smiled against her chest, he had to fight a laugh. She really was something else. Still trying to defuse the remaining tension. How did she even know what to say? She always knew how to shake him out of his own head, to clear his worries and insecurities. He wasn't sure he was comfortable with the idea of how much BBC programming she might be watching with Happy, on top of their mutual love of Downton Abbey but her word usage was certainly appreciated. In exclusive company of course.

“What can I say but, yes, ma’am,” he responded with a rakish smile.


End file.
